Nick Ostroff is the founder of Pixelocity, a Los Angeles digital marketing agency, and a Google Ads coach and advisor to small business owners — a UC Berkeley economist with a Masters in Finance who co-founded The Sofa Company in 1998 and spent 20+ years marketing his own businesses before starting Pixelocity in 2020.
Nick's journey is a testament to resilience, constant learning, and a driving passion for empowering small businesses. He spent more than two decades in the trenches of retail — building furniture companies, importing from Asia, shipping restaurant apps — before turning everything those years taught him into Pixelocity. Through triumphs and trials, he developed a distinctive approach to digital marketing: economics-trained, finance-sharpened, and learned the hard way, with his own money on the line.
“This chapter of my life is about helping other small business owners master real-world marketing skills to make their own passions thrive.”
Education & certifications →Meet Sean Schimmel, partner →Read Nick's essays ↗
Where it started
An economist first.
In 1997, Nick earned his Economics degree from UC Berkeley — economic theory, quantitative methods, and the discipline of asking whether the numbers actually work. From there, an overseas chapter: International Business studies at Sophia University in Tokyo while serving the California government's trade office.
Twenty-five years later he was still at it, adding a Masters in Finance and Financial Management from Boston University in 2022. That blend — economics, global business, finance — is the lens every Pixelocity campaign gets built through.
1998–2020
The Sofa Company.
In 1998, Nick and his partners Peter Lien and James Hwang set out to redefine comfort, style, and customer experience in furniture. Customization was the cornerstone — customers designed their sofas to exact specification, fabric to frame — and skilled craftsmen brought those visions to life for over two decades.
Nick was the technical and creative engine: the websites, the advertising, the analytics — marketing that had to produce real customers, every month, or the doors didn't stay open. When The Sofa Company closed in 2020, it left a legacy in countless LA homes — and left Nick with a rare education no agency classroom can teach: twenty years of spending his own money on marketing.
The ventures along the way
2001
MisterImporter
One of the first LA furniture operations importing containers of fine furniture from Asia — pioneering globally sourced, one-of-a-kind pieces in the Los Angeles market.
2008
99Apps
Founded with his sister Natalie in the early smartphone days — iPhone apps built for restaurants, at the front edge of an emerging technology.
2014
Recliners.LA
A specialized brand bringing the world's best reclining furniture — Stressless, American Leather, Palliser — to LA, and a leading e-commerce operation in the category.
2020
Pixelocity
Two decades of marketing that had to pay for itself, turned into an agency built for small business owners.
Education
BA, Economics — UC Berkeley
1997
Economic theory, quantitative methods, and business applications — the foundation that still drives how Pixelocity anticipates market trends. Go Bears!
International Business — Sophia University, Tokyo
Post-grad
Studied in Tokyo while serving the California government's trade office — a working education in global economics and cross-cultural business.
Masters in Finance — Boston University
2022
Financial modeling, corporate finance, and investment analysis — the discipline behind budget-optimized, high-return ad strategies.
Certifications
Preferred Advertising Partner — Search, Shopping, Display, Video & Apps Ads
Upwork
Top Rated Plus
CompTIA
A+ Certification
Yelp
Agency Partner
AdRoll
Certified Partner
How Nick works
Nick's approach to small business growth.
Five principles, learned the expensive way, that shape every consultation, coaching session, and campaign Pixelocity touches.
- 01
Measure before you scale.
Conversion tracking for calls, forms, and bookings gets fixed before a dollar of ad spend is scaled. The first month of any account is about clean data, not headline numbers.
- 02
Judge ads on cost per qualified lead, not clicks.
Clicks and impressions are inputs. The number a small business owner actually lives on is what a booked job or a signed client costs, tracked back to the keyword and ad that produced it.
- 03
Every dollar has to pay for itself.
Twenty years of marketing his own furniture businesses with his own money, plus economics at Berkeley and finance at BU, means every campaign is built as an investment with a return, not a line item.
- 04
You own the account.
Campaigns are built in the client's own Google Ads account, month to month, with no long-term contract. The history, the data, and the skills stay with the business if it ever leaves.
- 05
Teach the skill, don't just rent it.
Pixel – Advisor is done-with-you coaching inside the owner's account: Nick shows what to change and why, so the owner can keep running it. Done-for-you management is there for owners who would rather hand it off.
Results & recognition
Numbers you can check, not adjectives.
+19%
more qualified leads at the same spend, year over year
Hassakis Law case study →
$172 → $144
cost per qualified lead, same account, same three months
Hassakis Law case study →
½
cost per conversion after one campaign was refined
Upwork client review →
100%
Job Success score across 132 Upwork jobs, Top Rated
Nick's Upwork profile →
Past results never guarantee future ones. Every market and business is different.
Recognition
- Google Preferred Advertising Partner (Search, Shopping, Display, Video & Apps)
- Top Rated on Upwork with a 100% Job Success score
- Yelp Agency Partner and AdRoll Certified Partner
- Five-star reviews on Google and Yelp
In clients' words
“Communication was top class with Nick. Impeccable skills and knowledge about Google Ads and Analytics.”
“Nick was very helpful in giving us an audit of our Google ads and helping us refine one of our campaigns to perform much better than before. That particular ad cut our cost per conversion in half! I would highly recommend working with Nick for Google Ads.”
“Nick was the perfect fit for what we were looking for in a Google Ads & SEM Freelancer. He was flexible in his approach – both hands-on and taking more of a coaching/training role so that we could learn some of the ins and outs to manage our own campaigns in the future. He provided super helpful training videos, provided great insider tips and tricks, and helped get everything set up properly in the backend with both Ads and Analytics to ensure we were set up for success. Can’t recommend his services enough!”
AUG 22, 2026
No Scoreboard
Growing up, the scoreboard told you if the night counted. Tonight there was no scoreboard, and a win still happened.
Read →
AUG 21, 2026
I Finally Saw the Vacancies
I used to think of the Promenade as the place that was always busy. Then I stood on 3rd Street and believed the vacancies.
Read →
JUL 2, 2026
Open Play
How pickleball open play helped me make new friends, become more comfortable with my own story, and open up again.
Read →
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about Nick Ostroff.
Who is Nick Ostroff?
Nick Ostroff is the founder of Pixelocity, a Los Angeles digital marketing agency, and the coach behind its Pixel – Advisor program. A UC Berkeley economist with a Masters in Finance from Boston University, he co-founded The Sofa Company in 1998 and spent more than twenty years running marketing for his own businesses before starting Pixelocity in 2020.
What does Nick Ostroff do at Pixelocity?
Nick leads coaching and strategy. He runs Pixel – Advisor, the one-on-one Google Ads coaching program, delivers the free consultations and Discovery Sessions that start every engagement, and directs Pixel – Apps, the software Pixelocity builds in-house. His partner Sean Schimmel runs Pixel – Manager, the done-for-you Google Ads management program, day to day.
What is Nick Ostroff's background?
Retail and e-commerce, not agency life. Nick co-founded The Sofa Company in 1998 and was its technical and creative engine for over two decades: the websites, the advertising, and the analytics that had to produce customers every month. Along the way he started MisterImporter (2001), 99Apps (2008), and Recliners.LA (2014), then founded Pixelocity in 2020.
What are Nick Ostroff's credentials?
A BA in Economics from UC Berkeley (1997), International Business studies at Sophia University in Tokyo, and a Masters in Finance from Boston University (2022). Pixelocity is a Google Preferred Advertising Partner across Search, Shopping, Display, Video, and Apps, and Nick is a Top Rated freelancer on Upwork with a 100% Job Success score across 132 jobs.
How does Nick approach small business growth?
Measure first, then spend. Nick fixes conversion tracking for calls, forms, and bookings before scaling a dollar of ad spend, judges campaigns on cost per qualified lead rather than clicks, and builds everything inside an account the owner keeps. Because he spent twenty years marketing his own businesses with his own money, every recommendation has to pay for itself.
What results has Nick produced for clients?
In Pixelocity's published Hassakis Law case study, a personal injury firm produced 19% more qualified leads at the same spend while cost per qualified lead fell from $172 to $144 year over year. One Upwork client reported that a refined campaign cut their cost per conversion in half. Past results never guarantee future ones; every market is different.
Can I work with Nick directly?
Yes. Every engagement starts with a free 30-minute consultation with Nick, booked on this page. From there you can choose Pixel – Advisor coaching, where Nick works one-on-one inside your Google Ads account, or a Discovery Session that audits your marketing before any monthly fee is agreed. Coaching and management are month to month.
Does Nick only work with Los Angeles businesses?
No. Nick is based in Manhattan Beach, California, and many clients are across Greater Los Angeles and the South Bay, but coaching and consultations are delivered remotely over video. He also works with clients well beyond Los Angeles through Upwork, where he has completed 132 jobs.
Where can I read Nick Ostroff's writing?
Nick publishes essays on marketing, business, and growth at nickostroff.com, and the three most recent appear on this page under Deep Thoughts. His practical Google Ads guidance also runs in the Pixelocity news section and the Google Ads benchmarks page on this site.
Free consultation
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